Tag: hamilton

Form and Fixation features two extraordinary works in one show: Reverie, which explores automatism and the natural meanderings of the mind and Blue(dot)Political, a politically charged work commenting on the roles of leader, follower and individual. Form and Fixation will inspire you to reflect upon our complex realities as individuals within society.

FCDT is based the Hamilton/Burlington area. FCDT intends to create art that is inviting for audiences, art that combines extremes in its emotional content and art that is informed by human experiences. We aim to create works of art that have a raw and vulnerable essence.

It is a wonderful, scary and large feeling to set up on the side of the street, unannounced, and step up onto a white box wearing all black and begin sharing physically-animated poetry and stream of conscious with whoever is passing by. Thanks to those that stopped, even for a moment, to hear a bit of the world I experience, and to Lisa Pijuan-Nomura and the James North Studio for hosting me this past weekend. It’s always a pleasure to share with and receive artistic impulses with the exciting city that is Hamilton.

This summer I took an opportunity to discard any sense of established safety, or comfort in my life and wander, or explore the different vantages defining it. One vantage was from a completely different angle of Toronto, the East End, the Danforth. Another was my, what I generally and defaultly entitle “home” because of my parents in Oshawa. The third was Hamilton, a city I had a romantic vision of because of its rough but so inspiring sense of promise and revitalization. I put all of my belongings in boxes and into storage or on the side of the curb and lived the last three months out of two pieces of luggage and my backpack. Some really interesting moments of realization came out of this choice, both artistically and personally.

I began writing with a pen in a notebook. This is a big deal for me. My fingers don’t like pens. They want to move individually to express my thoughts. They do not want to operate as a whole hand-unit. But I forced it, and recognized a difference in my writing style, something about having to focus on moving and creating each letter, something about not being able to relate my thoughts quite as fast as on a computer made me think about them a bit more, made me contemplate their sentence structure and the information within.

From this notebook, I began picking entries I believe spoke the most to my experiences during this time and created a blog to chronicle it all.

hill & harbour is what emerged. It is composed of a series of writings and pictures. And not much context. Because of this simplicity, I am happy of its ability to be a somewhat naked relation of existence and contemplation.

On top of this:

hill & harbour has been developed into a short performance, using some of the theatrical research and training I underwent during this time and will be presented at the James North Studio Gallery as part of SUPERCRAWL in Hamilton. This weekend!

The performance is free and will happen three times over two days.

If you’re in Hamilton, please come by and experience what it’s like under hill & harbour.